Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting The @#$&* 243 Winchester

Zero issues with deer hit with well-placed 243 bullets. If you're hunting them "afoot" and taking the angles that are given by obstructions... maybe sometimes the answer is just not to shoot... rather than depend on a bigger bullet to make up for placement. That's not a criticism of how anyone hunts or what with... just an observation.

I've killed several deer with 100 grain CLs in 243. None of them went anywhere. On the other hand, I shot a deer a few years ago at about 50 yards with a 6.5mm bonded bullet, turned both lungs and the heart to liquid, but the damn thing still ran 40 yards into the thickest stand of blackbrush in Texas before hemorrhaging (looked like the bucket of blood scene from Carrie) everything in the chest cavity and falling over. Sometimes deer are just gonna run dead on their feet.

There's certainly nothing at all wrong with taking angle/quartering shots that go through vitals. If you're worried about a 40-50 yard death run making a deer "nearly impossible to find" you should probably stay in your stand where you can pick your shots.

I took my .30-30 out over the weekend and put a couple groups on paper from 50 yards. The first 3 shot group measured 1 1/4", the second 7/8". Nothing spectacular from a rest but I was shooting off hand. Some people could no doubt do better. Most can't.

You quoted "nearly impossible to find" ... but I didn't actually say that. I followed a blood trail and dragged the deer out. (Obviously, or I wouldn't have know what the hemorrhage site looked like.)

In your previous post, you implied that the 243 wasn't enough gun because the way you hunt doesn't allow you to select shots given the angles and obstructions, so you'd prefer a larger cartridge. But if you're capable of really putting a bullet through vitals, what's the problem with shot selection? We aren't talking about elk or bison or a brown bear skull. If you have a shot at vitals, for a whitetail, the 243 with a good bullet will get the job done just as well as a 6.5 or 7mm, as virtually everyone here has stated.

I never implied a .243 wasn't enough gun. With the exception of rio ,I've probsbly killed as many with a .243 as most anyone else here. It won't put deer down on the spot dependably with a lung shot, nothing shoulder fired wiil. It also won't put as much blood on the ground as often as a larger cal. IME and for that reason I prefer to use something with a bigger hole in the muzzle when hunting in cover and not from a stand. For stand hunting where you can pick your shots, a .243 or even .223 is fine.

This is a path I cleared through impossibly thick vegetation on my acreage. Look how thick it is on either side of the path. Imagine trying to make it 40 yards in an uncertain direction though that...after dark.

That kind of stuff is "fall down and never hit the ground" thick, and it does suck to track one in that. Dragging one out isn't fun either.

Same.

My experience with how deer react to a well-placed 243 is simply different than yours, so there's not much point arguing about it. (Neither of is is going to discount what we've seen actually happen.) That said, the quoted statement below doesn't say anything about being able to reach vitals and implies that you shoot the deer where it's visible through cover and obstructions. I.e., "don't get to put your bullet where you might choose" which for almost everyone is vitals (I'm not a headshot person) ... "you put it in the spot that is clear of obstruction from the angle that's offered" which could mean that spot is ANYWHERE where the deer is exposed to your vision. Again, I'm not saying you didn't get the results you've suggested with the 243, but if you don't think your statement implied shooting spots other than vitals... we're simply at a rhetorical impasse.

"When you hunt them afoot in the woods, you often don't get to put your bullet where you might choose and from the angle you'd prefer but rather you put it in the spot that is clear of obstruction from the angle that's offered."

Afoot, 25 yard shot. 50 yard run, bad shot placement on my part. 6mm, 95 grain Partition. Poured blood but didn't need it as I watched him go down.

Afoot. 35-40 yards. Instant death.

Some interesting comments here on the .243, for hunting here in the S. Texas Brush Country, the .243 works for me as a good all around gun, for Whitetails,Coyote,Bobcat,and Small to medium size Exotic's, I have killed large game animals with the .243, but like most here I like something heavier for critters over 400#

Some people kill Elephants with a 6.5, Some people have trouble killing a Elephant with a 500 Nitro Express, Example's of 1 don't count for much. Rio7

Not doubt the 30-30 works but is about as slow of a killer as I have used when it comes to behind the shoulder, rear lung shots. Definitely nothing spectacular as I see when speeds get to 2700 or faster.

Not exactly large bore and sure isn't setting the world on fire as far as speed. I have seen several deer shot with one and all had the classic 100 yard death run, yes there was a blood trail and yes they died but I still scratch my head why some want to track deer while I could be busy gutting.

If I were to use it again I would be back at that high forward shot I use with a 223, 22-250, 243, 6mm, blah blah blah cartridge and would be finding the deer dead in their shadows.

Bloodtrails are overrated.

What I meant is you dont always get the perfect presentation and get to choose to shoot them high shoulder, neck, head or broadside through the lungs, duh. Geesus, I've been killing deer for near 50 years and have killed well over 200 of them with everythig from .22LR to .30-06 and a bunch in between. I killed my first buck 48 years ago with a .22LR {and several more thereafter}. I killed my last buck last Wednesday morning with a pointy stick. I guess by god I know where the vitals are and where they ain't, how to put bullets and arrows through them and what the results are likely to be. I also know a six year old can kill deer from a stand with just about anything if he can shoot and that a .243 or .223 is not the full equal of a .30-06 when it comes to producing blood trails, despite what some of the fans here would like to believe.

Nice buck.

I've killed 90 deer with a .30-30 since I started using one in 1979 and haven't had one make 100 yards after a lung shot yet. In fact the vast majority have gone down somewhere between 20 and 60 yards, just about like they do with my .223, .243, .308 or .30-06. Hell, I've even lung shot a few with a .22 magnum and 5mm Remington magnum rimfire and none of those made it as far as 100 yards either. On the other hand, I shot one broadside through both lungs from 30 yards with a 12 gauge foster slug and watched it run 250 yards across a pasture before it went down. Which just goes to show there are no absolutes and there's always an exception to the rule. One thing the .30-30 has over the .243 is that in all those deer, shot from near every angle, including through both shoulders multiple times, I've only ever recovered a 170 grain bullet on deer shot lengthwise straight on into the brisket. All quartering shots, whether to or away and going through shoulders coming or going it exits.

Pretty much ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ it right there
I've killed more than a few deer that were able to
make it to cover with red jello for innards

Never had any problems getting one back to where
I could put the pieces in freezer bags though.

only answer to getting one to drop in it's tracks
that I could offer is to pop it in the head with a
precise rifle shot, or blow it down with a bunch
of buckshot or similar . It's either that, or sacrifice
a goodly portion of useable meat

After you've been here for a while, you learn to "weed out the chaff".

When the "chaff" hunts the thick stuff, he'd rather have a boomerang trajectory boomenheimer, to leave big, leaky holes, rather than a laser beam, for bisecting those brushy holes & killing shyte !

It's a deer, if you can't kill it with a .243, or can't sign track an animal for 50 yards, kick it to death with your steel toed, brier bustin boots.

Yep, gotta have a blood trail, to find a deer !

TFF !